I went to the best jazz concert last night. Herbie Hancock (piano), Dave Holland (bass) and Jack DeJohnette (drums) gave a really brilliant performance. They were three old pros, listening to each other and playing great music. You could tell they all respected each other, and contributed as equals. Surprisingly for me, Dave Holland was the standout. I'm not usually a fan of bass, but his solos were as clean and innovative as if he were playing the piano.

I haven't enjoyed a concert that much in years. If you get a chance to see them on tour, go hear them. The Toronto Star has a review in today's paper.

It was interesting to compare them with another jazz trio I heard in London a couple of years ago. That lineup was Keith Jarrett and Gary Peacock, again with Jack DeJohnette. That concert was disappointing. It wasn't from lack of talent, obviously, but Keith Jarrett was as self-indulgent as Herbie Hancock was inclusive.

Here's an interesting post about the economics of Google's hardware systems. I didn't know they had 100,000 servers; the number 10,000 was always repeated in press reports. I also didn't know Rob Pike of unix/Plan 9 fame was working for Google.

Update: this June 14, 2006 New York Times article by John Markoff says the best estimate of the number of servers Google has is 450,000. And growing fast...